7/23/2019 ONS Statistics Key Insights Dcp171776_374941 http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ons-statistics-key-insights-dcp171776374941 1/18 20 August 2014 Office for National Statistics | 1 Self-employed workers in the UK - 2014 Coverage: UK Date: 20 August 2014 Geographical Area: Local Authority Theme: Economy Theme: Labour Market Key Points • Self-employment higher than at any point over past 40 years • Rise in total employment since 2008 predominantly among the self-employed • Rise predominately down to fewer people leaving self-employment than in the past • The number of over 65s who are self-employed has more than doubled in the past 5 years to reach nearly half a million • Self-employed workers tend to be older than employees and are more likely to work higher (over 45) or lower (8 or less) hours • The number of women in self-employment is increasing at a faster rate than the number of men (although men still dominate self employment) • The most common roles are working in construction and taxi driving and in recent years there have been increases in management consultants • Average income from self-employment fallen by 22% since 2008/09 • Across the European Union the UK has had the third largest percentage rise in self-employment since 2009 Self-employed workers in the UK - 2014 Self-employment higher than at any point over past 40 years In 2014, 4.6 million people were self-employed in their main job accounting for 15% of those in work, which is the highest percentage at any point in the past four decades, since data were first collected. There were also an additional 356,000 employees who had a second job in which they were self- employed.
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7/23/2019 ONS Statistics Key Insights Dcp171776_374941
Rise in self-employment is predominately down to fewer people leaving self-employment
than in the past
Of the 4.6 million self-employed workers in 2014, 36%, or 1.7 million workers had started their self-
employment role since 2009. As self-employment was 783,000 higher than in 2009 this implies that
886,000, or 23%, of those who were self-employed in 2009 had left by 2014. The percentage of
people starting self-employment, also known as the inflow rate, over the past 20 years has been
fairly constant, hovering around 36% to 38%. The percentage of people leaving self-employment,
or the outflow rate, was between 32% and 37% until the most recent five-year period where it fell
to 23%. Therefore the rise in self-employment is predominately down to fewer people leaving self-
employment than in the past.
Why people are not leaving self-employment is not asked but the fall in the outflow from self-
employment could be down to several economic and social factors which may include:
• More people (both those self-employed and those working as employees) are continuing to workbeyond the default state pension age. Self-employment among those aged 65 and over has
doubled from 241,000 in 2009 to 428,000 in 2014.
• The opportunity to work as an employee fell at the onset of the economic downturn which limited
the opportunity for people to move from self-employment.
7/23/2019 ONS Statistics Key Insights Dcp171776_374941
London and the South East have seen the largest increase in self-employment as a percentageof all workers since 2008 at 2.0 percentage points, closely followed by the West Midlands and
North West at 1.9 percentage points. Yorkshire and The Humber had the smallest increase at 0.7
percentage points.
Local authorities in the South West had some of the highest self-employment rates
Using information from the 2011 Census, the Isles of Scilly had the highest self-employment rate
of any local authority, with 33.2% of people in work being self-employed. This was followed by theOrkney Islands with 28.2% and West Somerset with 27.8%.
The average for the EU was a decrease of 0.1% in the number of self-employed workers between
2009 and 2014. The largest falls in self-employment were in Croatia, Portugal and Greece.
Background notes
1. Sources:
• Labour Force Survey, ONS
• Annual Population Survey, ONS
• 2011 Census, ONS
• Family Resources Survey, DWP
• European Labour Force Survey, Eurostat
All UK analysis uses the quarterly LFS person datasets for April to June 2014
Income analysis uses the Family Resources Survey
All regional analysis uses the annual APS datasets for January to December 2013
All Local Authority level analysis uses the 2011 Census
All European analysis uses the European Labour Force Survey datasets for Quarter 1 for 2009
and 2014
2. Self-employed are workers who directly provide services and do not have a contract of
employment, based on the respondents view of the type of work they do.
• The self-employment rate is the number of self-employed aged 16 and over as a percentage
of those in employment aged 16 and over.
• The inflows and outflows from self-employment are the differences in self-employment
between two fixed periods in time, five years apart. They do not state the total number of
people that have entered and left self-employment between these two periods in time. There
are people that will enter and leave self-employment in between these periods that cannot be
accounted for.
• Hours worked is the total usual hours worked in main job (including overtime)
• Occupation group is based on the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) 2010 majorgroups. Datasets before 2010 that use SOC 2000 groups have been reclassified to SOC
2010 standards for comparison. The occupation group is not available for some workers and
these have been excluded from the tables.
• Industry group is based on the Standard Industry Classification (SIC) 2007 sectors. The
industry sector is not available for some workers and these have been excluded from the
tables.
3. The Consumer Prices Index of inflation is used to adjust income for inflation
4. Details of the policy governing the release of new data are available by visiting www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/code-of-practice/index.html or from the Media